


Testosterone

by the_genderman



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 5+1 Things, Arguing, Brendol Hux's A+ Parenting, Enemies to Lovers, Flashbacks, Gender Identity, Hutt biology and gender, Kylo Ren is a Mess, M/M, Minor appearances of various canonical characters, Or at least pre-lovers where they're definitely interested, Pre-Slash, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Toxic Masculinity, Trans Armitage Hux, Trans Kylo Ren, Trans Male Character, Transphobia, Uneasy Allies, Unreliable Narrator, injuries, see chapter notes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:41:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26713885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_genderman/pseuds/the_genderman
Summary: A 5+1 look at gender and masculinity through the eyes of Kylo Ren and Armitage Hux, told through memories and flashbacks, all while they’re trying to get off of this blasted moon they crash landed on. Can they manage to cooperate?
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Comments: 10
Kudos: 33





	1. Chapter 1 - Hux

**Author's Note:**

> First note, trans characters written by a trans author. They’re by no means meant to be any kind of all-encompassing trans experience. Gender identity is complex and while there’s no “one right way” of experiencing it, these two are… well. Hux has been steeped in Imperial toxic masculinity and abuse by men in power his whole life, and Kylo’s just a hot mess.
> 
> Secondly, a note on pronouns and names. I do not plan on dead-naming anyone, but the use of Kylo and Hux’s pronouns, by them or by other characters, may be a little confusing. I will use he/him even if in the flashbacks, they may have been using she/her pronouns at the time because they weren’t out yet or hadn’t figured it out yet. They will, at various times of their respective childhoods, be referred to as girls because that was how they presented and/or how others saw them.
> 
> Third note. There will be a couple chapter end notes for content warnings. Heads up for chapter 3 especially, I don’t want anyone going in unaware if they don’t want to, in case that’s their trigger and/or squick.
> 
> Fourth note. I know there _is_ canon outside of the movies—in comics, shows, etc, but I personally only have Wookieepedia to go by at the time of writing, so… haha, canon blender go brrr, let’s make up fake minerals for plot reasons.

_This whole excursion was a mistake from the get-go_ , Hux thought to himself as he finally managed to extract himself from his seat in the crashed shuttle. He was in pain and would end up with more than a few unsightly bruises as a result, but he didn’t see blood anywhere on him. And though painful, he was able to put weight on his left ankle, so it probably wasn’t broken. _There had to have been other ways to stay in Snoke’s good graces that didn’t involve tagging along with the most irritating, unstable manchild in the galaxy to try to retrieve some many-times-stolen Sith artifact on a mission so secret he wasn’t originally supposed to be involved in it._

He paused. Of course. He probably ought to check on Ren. Snoke would not be so forgiving if he came back without his protégé. Hux picked his way carefully through the damaged cabin to the pilot’s seat. He paused briefly, a little hesitant to see what condition its occupant would be in, considering the amount of damage to the viewport in front of him. Ren groaned and Hux felt a sudden flash of relief; at least he was alive. Hux took the last couple steps up to stand beside Ren, looking down at him.

Even with the mask and layers, Hux could see that Ren was disoriented, likely injured. There was a small, wet-looking patch on his abdomen, right at the edge of his ribs. Probably blood, probably caused by whatever thing or things that had shattered the viewport, torn through his tunic deep enough to make him bleed, and ricocheted through the small craft before punching their ways back out again. If he was being generous, he might be tempted to think that Ren had done an admirable job putting the shuttle down without further damage to either the craft or its occupants. Hux, however, was not feeling generous. He was feeling sore from the crash landing and irritated to be stranded, however temporarily, on this blasted moon with Ren, of all people. 

Shaking his head like he could clear the disorientation, Ren slowly looked up at Hux. “What did you _do_?” he growled, voice distorted by his mask’s vocoder.

“What did _I_ do?” Hux asked, taken aback.

“Yes, you,” Ren said, his voice becoming more stable but also more angry. “This should have been a simple landing. What did you do to this ship?”

“Nothing!” Hux snapped. “You’re disoriented. This was clearly caused by some external… _thing_ , and are you really so dense as to believe I’d want to do anything other than get in, grab the artifact, and be done with it? I have better things I could be doing with my time.” He wondered briefly whether, if they missed their expected rendezvous time, would Snoke come looking for them or merely punish them upon return for being late? He wouldn’t have sent the two of them to retrieve this artifact if he didn’t trust them not to abscond with it.

“Oh, yes, of _course_ , the artifact that supposedly you’re the only one who Snoke trusts to properly identify it,” Ren sneered as he fumbled to extract himself from the pilot’s seat.

Hux stepped back. “I didn’t _ask_ to be sent on this expedition. I made the mistake of recognizing some otherwise unassuming-looking cube that Snoke had schema for sitting on the arm of his throne during his last call. He heard my thoughts, was surprised I recognized it, and decided I’d have to go along to make a concrete identification once the cube was located.”

“You’ve seen it?” Ren asked, also surprised. “Where? When? It’s been lost for years.”

Hux swallowed. He didn’t particularly _want_ to answer, but he also didn’t particularly care for the invasive press of the Force in his mind that he knew he’d be feeling if he refused to answer. He’d tell Ren, if only to keep him out of his head. “I saw it when I was a child, on Jakku. Niima the Hutt had it in her collection.”

Ren scoffed. “Of course. Leave it to a Hutt to steal and hoard something so valuable. I suppose someone stole it again after the Battle of Jakku?”

“I suppose so, or else how would it have ended up all the way out here?” Hux shrugged, stepping carefully backwards through the shuttle debris as Ren got to his feet. Slightly shaky still, but he hid it well. And Hux wasn’t about to vocalize that; he preferred to stay alive and intact. He sneered internally, though. Of course Ren fit in perfectly among the old Imperials who made up so much of the new First Order leadership. They were all insecure men who considered any insinuation of weakness as a personal insult to manhood—theirs _or_ in general.

“And where is it supposed to be? Or were we expected to scour the entire moon until we happened to stumble across it?” Ren asked, bracing himself with one hand against the broken console.

“It was supposed to be at the landing site, of course. Which is…” Hux picked up his datapad—thankfully still functional, resynchronized it with the shuttle’s computer—and tapped away at the screen until he found his answer, “fifteen klicks west of our present location. The artifact is in a small cave. Another three klicks beyond that is an abandoned Imperial outpost, a mining site where we might be able to signal for rescue. Hm. That feels too close for comfort to hide an artifact such as this, unless the site had been abandoned long before the artifact ever arrived.”

“Probably that second one. Also _extraction_ , not rescue,” Ren interrupted.

“Yes, of course, my mistake,” Hux said, turning his back to Ren and rolling his eyes. “I’ll gather what we’ll need to make the trek.”

“ _Kriffing Hutts…_ ” Hux heard Ren mutter as he scooped up a medkit, emergency rations, portable moisture vaporators, anything else that might help them make the _walk_ across this cursed moon. His ankle hated him already for it and they hadn’t even begun.

The Empire had had a tenuous relationship with the Hutts. Hutt control over a far-reaching web of criminal activities across the galaxy meant they had resources the Empire had wanted, but they were a haughty race, proud and unwilling to make deals that didn’t greatly benefit them. Almost no one considered the Hutts _pleasant_. They were not a species you would want to have drinks with lest one of them decide you would be worth more to them as a slave than a free ally, but Hux had… complicated memories of his childhood with the Jakku Imperial Remnant and Niima the Hutt, not all of them entirely unpleasant. He supposed it had been this artifact he and Ren had been sent to retrieve now that had set his life as he knew it in motion.

Hux had been five, maybe six when he had first seen it. A small silvery cube, no bigger than a fist, and glowing faintly with an odd red light that you could only see out of the corner of your eye. He had been immediately drawn to it, wanting to know more about it—what was it, where had it come from, what did it do? Niima had been quite willing to speak of her treasures, showing off her great wealth, even if she didn’t know exactly what each treasure did. Wasn’t it nice? Very expensive. Her uncle—well, more correctly, he had been her aunt when he had gotten it—had “acquired” it from a bounty hunter who owed her quite a large debt. And Niima had explained that she had later “acquired” it from her uncle, making it quite clear that was the end of that conversation.

Hux had gone home that day, mind reeling with the things he had learned. Hutts could simply _change_? It had been dropped so casually in conversation, like there was nothing unusual about it. Her uncle, who had been her aunt. In hindsight, he probably should have known better than to ask his father about it, but at that age he had still clung to a child’s hope that—despite everything—his father did love him. Incorrect, but children’s logic was so often flawed. He still remembered the look of disgust on his father’s face.

_That peculiarity of the Hutts was nothing to be celebrated, it was degenerate, an evolutionary dead end_ , Brendol Hux had explained, face growing more and more livid with anger as he continued. _The Hutts’ biology was quite unlike that of humans, thankfully. They were a depraved species, both male and female in the same body,_ choosing _which sex they wished to present as at any time. At least, if they were forced to ally themselves with Niima for her resources, she had the good sense to have picked a sex and stuck with it_. 

Hux had spent the rest of that evening in his room, wondering. Could humans choose to change, too? Even if human biology was as different from Hutt biology as it was, they were both sentients, weren’t they? There had to be some similarities. Or else why would he feel like a boy even if everyone said he was a girl?


	2. Chapter 2 - Kylo

Kylo gritted his teeth against the pain in his abdomen and the unpleasant feeling of blood seeping into his clothing. Everything about this moon was unpleasant. As soon as they had entered the atmosphere, it had felt like he had been rapidly and violently plunged into icy water, the breath and warmth stolen out of his body. He had never felt Force disruption before. He knew it was theoretically possible, that there were ways to disrupt or sever—temporarily or permanently—a Force-sensitive’s connection, but he had never encountered it before and hadn’t been prepared for the shock of feeling it. And because of his momentary distraction, he had struck something—he still didn’t know what it could have been—and crashed the shuttle. He was a better pilot than that, and he cursed himself for not being able to adapt to whatever the galaxy threw his way to test him.

“Give me that datapad,” Kylo ordered, watching as Hux picked his way fastidiously through the wrecked shuttle, collecting anything he deemed useful.

Hux turned to face him, looking for a moment like he was going to refuse, before shrugging and handing the device over. 

Snatching it out of his hand, Kylo began searching through the information it held to see if there was anything about the elemental and mineral composition of the moon. _There_. There it was. The mining site Hux had mentioned had been a short-lived enterprise. Unfortunately, almost every bit of ore collected had been contaminated with amvhenitite. The proportion was low, but amvhenitite was notoriously difficult to purify out and had a host of unpleasant side-effects—such as Force-disruption, in great enough quantities. Quantities like _the amount scattered evenly throughout this entire moon’s crust_. Kylo growled.

“If you break that datapad, I swear…” Hux interjected, not finishing his threat.

“You swear what? _Do_ tell me what you would do, General,” Kylo said, pressing his hand to his wound and stalking across the shuttle to where Hux had gotten to. He held the datapad out.

Hux merely scowled and took the datapad back, slipping it into the emergency carry-bag he had found.

Kylo watched Hux, studying him. He had seen the man around the Finalizer, of course, sat in enough meetings with him, poked into his mind a few times during those meetings, but he had never had to work one on one with him before. He was far younger than most of the officers and had caught Snoke’s eye as one of his favorites. He was intelligent, tenacious, ruthless, efficient, but physically weak and he knew it. He carried himself with a confidence that he felt like he had to earn anew every day, and that made him angry and quietly insecure. Kylo couldn’t reach into his mind now, not with the amvhenitite all around them, so he’d have to rely on things like tone and body language to read him. What he was reading right now from Hux was mostly an irritated sort of acceptance of circumstances that he was powerless to change. 

Meanwhile, Hux had found a portable medical scanner and was checking himself for injuries. He had removed one boot, rolled up his pant leg and was slowly sweeping the device around his ankle. Apparently satisfied with his results, he pulled his boot back on and turned to Kylo. “I’m going to need to check you for injuries. It wouldn’t do to have you collapse from internal bleeding halfway to the mining outpost.”

“I’m fine,” Kylo said dismissively.

“Internal _or_ external bleeding,” Hux amended, looking meaningfully at the damp spot on his tunic. 

“I _said_ I’m fine,” Kylo said more firmly.

Hux looked unimpressed, but didn’t argue further. Instead, he lifted the scanner, attempting to bring it up to head-height. Kylo shot his hand out, wrapping his fingers around Hux’s wrist and holding him back. It wasn’t difficult, even without the Force to assist him. Hux frowned and struggled against his grip.

“Let go of me,” Hux insisted. “You were disoriented when I reached you. I need to make sure you haven’t sustained any head injuries.”

“My mask would have prevented that,” Kylo said, forcing Hux’s hand down and not yet releasing him. “I don’t need you mothering me like a nanny droid.”

“Oh, yes, of _course_ ,” Hux said drily, but with spots of angry color rising in his cheeks. “You wear that thing strictly for health and safety purposes, no other possible reason. Now take the mask off so I can scan you.”

“Scan through it,” Kylo ordered, releasing Hux’s wrist.

“Why, are you ashamed of your face?” Hux said quietly as he swept the scanner around Kylo’s mask at eye-level.

“You might be in Snoke’s good graces, but that means nothing down here. I’m willing to take my chances with him,” Kylo said, the venom in his voice bleeding through the vocoder.

“I should have realized that was such a touchy subject,” Hux said, sounding actually a little apologetic. “It _is_ difficult having people see you but think only of who your parents were. Well, luckily for you, your head is fine. No need to unmask. The injury at your ribs, however…?”

“No,” Kylo said, still angry. He folded his arms over his stomach. “It’s fine.”

Hux looked unconvinced, but he didn’t push further. “Shall we begin walking? I know we’re neither of us in peak condition, but we at least ought to be able to make it to the caves where the artifact is supposed to be before having to stop for a rest cycle.”

Kylo said nothing, but he released the shuttle door—thankfully still operational—and stepped out onto the surface of the moon. Rock, sand, and scrubby plants crunched under his boots. He mused. Hux hadn’t meant it as an insult. Or, perhaps he had in the heat of the moment, but had retreated quickly once he realized what he had said. It wasn’t like Hux to back down from a fight even if he was outmatched, so this was probably as close as he came to apologizing; it was… slightly unnerving. However, the barb had hit its mark whether or not he had meant it to, which kept his mind occupied on something other than the possibility that Hux might not hate him as much as his usual demeanor indicated.

As they walked through the boring, barren, blue moonscape, Kylo found his mind wandering. Hux didn’t know the real reasons he wore his mask; much better if he assumed it was only because he didn’t want people to be reminded of his Resistance parents when they saw him. Hux would never understand. He might be a bit on the scrawny side, but he was undeniably handsome and no one questioned that he was a man. None of the stodgy older officers looked at his face and wondered—entirely too loudly—what _was_ he? Hux would never have had those childhood moments where he had stood in front of a mirror and wondered if something was wrong with him, if perhaps it would have been better if he had been born differently.

Kylo tried to keep his focus on the here and now, digging the heel of his hand into his wound to try to use the pain to focus him, but “ _Why, are you ashamed of your face?_ ” continued to pick away at him and his mind kept slipping back to his childhood. Children could be cruel. No matter how well their parents claimed to raise them, children seemed drawn to the unusual, learning early that the odd and the ugly existed to be mocked for their entertainment. He had been nine at the time, and had still been trying his best to be the girl he had thought he was. 

He had gotten sent home from school for fighting on class picture day. It hadn’t been entirely his fault, but his teacher hadn’t seemed to want to know _why_ he had lashed out in anger at a fellow student, only that he _had_. That morning, his mom had done his hair up all nice, fancy braids like she wore, for the class photo. He’d gone off to school feeling pretty good about how he looked. And then _that_ happened. His teacher hadn’t seemed to care that the other girl—he didn’t remember her name anymore, no great loss—had come up beside him, poked him in the nose, and said “ _You look like a Toydarian in a wig_ ,” contempt dripping from her voice. 

At home, well, his mom wasn’t home yet; her job was really important and she couldn’t always be there when he wished she could. His dad had sat him down and gotten him cleaned up and patched up from the fight, carefully undoing his ruined braids. He had tried to make him feel better, tried cheer him up with one of his favorite stories, and told him that there were better ways of doing things than coming out swinging every time something upset him. Practice using your words, and you’ll be able to talk your way out of anything soon enough—wouldn’t that feel a lot better than getting hit every time you got mad? It had almost worked, but his dad would never really understand, would he? Boys seemed to have it so much easier.

After that, he had sat in his room, holding a little hand-mirror and wondering why he felt so… mismatched. He turned his head, looking at himself in the mirror from different angles. Even without the bandage on his temple or the beginning of a bruise under his eye, he didn’t feel like he fit into his face. A thought had entered his head unbidden, wondering if this would all have been different if he was a boy. Would the other children still call him names if he wasn’t a girl? Boys were _allowed_ to be ugly. He remembered having gotten angry enough at the mirror to break it with only his mind, slivering the glass and trying to shatter that thought like he had the mirror. He had been born the way he was and he would just have to figure out how to accept that he was always going to be considered ugly for a girl.


	3. Chapter 3 - Hux

Hux didn’t usually mind the quiet. He enjoyed the little quiet moments back on the ship when he finally got time to himself. Times when he could work on reports in peace, or read a holobook on his couch with his cat, Millicent, purring calmly in his lap, or simply watch the stars and appreciate how far he had managed to get in his life. He usually liked having time to simply _think_. Of course, those were times when he had some semblance of control over his situation as befit his rank. Here on this moon, all he had was the uncertainty of the walk ahead of him and Ren. Ren was making a strong effort not to admit that his injury was bothering him, but the way he carried himself, the way he walked, he was hurting. A little voice at the back of Hux’s mind whispered that he could probably get off of the moon, with the artifact even, without Ren. He dismissed it immediately. What good would it do him to survive this only to immediately be tortured to death by Snoke for allowing his apprentice to die out here? The only certainty right now, Hux thought, was the need to maintain this tenuous alliance with Ren.

There was only so much to keep Hux’s mind occupied on the walk; the landscape was flat, bleak and unchanging under a perpetual blueish twilight with only the scanner and the distant speck of the mining facility on the horizon to indicate they were headed the right way. There were only so many times he could check how the portable moisture vaporators were doing, how much water they had collected. Only so many times he could reread the short report on the artifact and its location on his datapad and recheck their direction. Only so many times he could surreptitiously observe Ren to see how he was holding up. Unfortunately, none of those things—not even the pain in his ankle—were currently proving sufficient to keep him from overthinking the things he had said earlier. He shouldn’t have made that little remark about Ren’s face. It was bad enough for _him_ when everyone in the First Order knew the situation of his parentage, how mortifying must it be to have parents who were active in the Resistance? He shouldn’t care about Ren’s feelings, but it nagged at him nonetheless. Hux knew all about how it felt to disappoint a parent, whether or not he had done anything to deserve it—outside of having been born in the first place.

Of course, disappointing one’s parents was an important step in finding one’s path in life, Hux thought. Maybe he was getting a little philosophical in this moment of uncertainty, but he could be excused. His mind wandered back to his childhood and the moment when he finally realized that, no matter what he did, his father would always consider him a disappointment. It was painful but freeing. If anything he said or did would bring only sneering contempt, punishment, or both, then why shouldn’t he speak his mind? Why shouldn’t he dictate his own path in life?

Hux had been almost thirteen. His father had been having an impromptu meeting with Grand Admiral Sloane late one evening and, as usual, he had been asked— _ordered_ —to find some refreshments for the two of them. Grand Admiral Sloane’s preferred variety of tea had run out the day before and hadn’t been replaced yet, so he had substituted the next best option on the refreshment tray. He had barely entered the office when he saw the change in his father’s face. He had set the tray on the desk as quickly as he could without sloshing the hot tea, preparing to bolt, but he hadn’t been fast enough. His father had gotten a hand around his wrist and held him fast. 

“ _You can’t even do_ this right, can you, girl?” the old Commandant had growled. “ _Your mother was just as mediocre, and look where it got her? If you’re lucky, and manage to survive a couple more years, maybe you’ll be able to pick up where she left off. I know a few officers who like their girls young…_ ”

“ _I’m not a_ girl _!_ ” he had shot back, pain and anger welling up inside him and pushing the words out. He glared at his father, face twisted in a child’s rage. He wasn’t going to sit back obediently and listen to his father call him a girl anymore. He felt Grand Admiral Sloane’s eyes on him, but he couldn’t turn to face her; didn’t want to see her disappointment, too. She had been one of the few people in his life who hadn’t been overtly cruel to him.

“ _Of course you are, who’s been feeding you this nonsense? _” his father had sneered, twisting his wrist.__

__“ _No one, and it’s not nonsense, it’s true! I’m not a girl and I never have been!_ ” he’d shouted, yanking his hand free and dashing out of the room._ _

__Hux, in all his pain and anger and childish logic, had gone to his room to prepare to kill his father and run away. He wasn’t sure where he’d run, but he was going to do it. He was going to steal an escape pod if he had to, anywhere would be better than here. When he’d taken the knife out from under his mattress, gotten a selection of clothes bundled up and shoved into a bag, and added a few of his favorite holobooks, he crept quietly to the refresher to get his toothbrush and toothpaste. Stopping in front of the mirror, he flinched at his reflection. It wasn’t right. It would use up valuable time, but it had to be done. Using his knife would be more dramatic but less efficient, so he dug through the medkit under the sink for a pair of scissors, turned to face himself in the mirror, and began to chop his hair off. It wasn’t a particularly good trim, but he could take care of that later when he had more time. Right now, all he wanted was to make himself _look_ how he felt. One task completed, he steeled himself for the next step. He’d have to figure out a reason why he’d be returning to his father’s office that wouldn’t make him seem suspicious. _ _

__Luck, however, was unsure if it wanted to be on his side or not. It hadn’t been his father, at least, who he had run into in the corridor, but Grand Admiral Sloane. She had taken one look at his impromptu haircut, the bag on his back, and the hilt of a knife not quite concealed in his clenched fist and running up his sleeve and said “ _You_ are_ quite serious, aren’t you?_”

He had managed to nod in agreement.

“ _Your father doesn’t deserve you, but trying to kill him now won’t do you any favors. You’re untrained in assassination and you’d be found out almost immediately even if you managed to succeed and even if I were to look the other way. Do not kill in anger if you don’t wish to be found out_ ,” she had explained. “ _I can help you. He doesn’t see you, simply because you don’t look like what he expects power to look like. You have all of his best qualities and so much more potential than he realizes. Luckily for you, I’ve seen you grow into those qualities. Your father may never see them, but none of that will matter as long as I can put you on the right track, yes?_ ”

Child Hux had nodded again, anger and fear giving way to curiosity and covetousness. He didn’t know what she was offering, but he thought he wanted it.

“ _I saw how well you did, commanding soldiers older than yourself on Jakku. You would be a fine fit at the Imperial Academy. Your father always had wanted a son and an heir, so I see this as an opportunity for you both. He’s afraid of me and I outrank him. Whatever I tell him to do, he’ll do it_ ,” Grand Admiral Sloane had explained. “ _The Academy won’t be easy—the Junior Academy won’t be easy, either—but I can get you in, under whatever name you wish to be called, and I can help you with doctors and resources. Do you want this?_ ”

Seeing the skepticism colored with a deep-seated need to believe her on his face, she smiled the smile of someone who knew they had earned a follower’s unwavering loyalty. She continued. “ _Power has its perks. I know it’s not well publicized, but it happens more often than you might realize. So. What do you say, shall we make your father far more miserable than killing him ever would?_ ”

And so he had. Hux had also later gone on to engineer his father’s death, but not before many years of watching him have to pretend to be proud of his son as he rose through the ranks in his classes and then the First Order. A cynical little thought entered his mind: None of that, however, would matter in the long run if he and Ren didn’t get off of this moon alive and well and preferably with the artifact. He glanced over at Ren again. He was still soldiering on, but if Hux wasn’t mistaken, if it wasn’t a trick of the light, his injury was still bleeding. He frowned, wondering what possible reason Ren could have for refusing treatment for his injury? Even overweening pride and a fragile sense of his own manhood couldn’t sufficiently explain why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Warning** : Brief mention of threatened sexual abuse of a minor. Nothing happens, but the threat is uttered.


	4. Chapter 4 - Kylo

“ _This_ is the cave?” Kylo asked, looking at the decent-sized but otherwise unassuming-looking hole in the side of a low hill. Quite possibly the only hill on this entire moon. He grimaced in pain, thankful for how his mask concealed his face, as he crouched down to peer into the hole.

“It’s the only thing that fits the description in this area,” Hux replied, scrolling thorough the datapad again like it would have spontaneously developed more information about what they were looking for.

Bracing his hand against the edge of the hole, Kylo leaned in a little, wondering if he could be seeing what he thought he was seeing. Was that a faint light somewhere from inside the cave? Perhaps, once they got off this kriffing moon, he would see about getting some upgrades to his mask. Maybe an electrobinocular function, nightview, something useful like that. Then, maybe, people wouldn’t question why he wore it.

“General Hux, come over here,” Kylo said, addressing him by his title to get his full attention. He gestured to him and then pointed down into the cave. “Do you see that too?”

Hux put the datapad away and walked over to the mouth of the cave, crouching down on the balls of his feet next to Kylo. Kylo watched the expression on his face change from his usual mild irritation to intrigue.

“Is that a _light_ source?” Hux asked, puzzled.

“Only one way to find out,” Kylo said, letting out a half laugh before catching himself. He grimaced under the cover of his mask, berating himself. That was stupid. He and Hux weren’t _friends_ , they didn’t laugh and joke together. He wasn’t sure if Hux even _had_ friends. He thought he saw Hux examining him from out of the corner of his eye, but he wouldn’t turn to look.

“Well then, which of us is going to go first?” Hux asked after a couple beats of silence. He held out a flashlight.

“You know what we’re looking for,” Kylo said, turning to accept the flashlight from Hux and tucking it into his belt. 

Hux nodded, clicked his flashlight on, and swept it around the mouth of the cave. Kylo watched and observed. The hole in the hillside wasn’t tall enough to stand to enter, but it also didn’t look like it would be too tight of a squeeze on hands and knees, though it was long and declined deeper into the ground. It would be undignified and uncomfortable, but perhaps it would open up more the further in they went. And perhaps the idea of watching Hux, the perpetually pressed and immaculate Hux, crawling on his hands and knees in a dirty cave was amusing enough to distract him from the pain in his ribs and the continuing slow bleed as every incautious movement reopened the wound. And, if he was being entirely too honest, he was looking forward to the view. The general had a nice rear.

Hux’s face took on an expression halfway between a scowl and a cringe as he entered the cave, pale dust quickly marring his dark uniform. Kylo followed him, trying to silence the little voice at the back of his mind that said perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea to see what was in the medkit, after all. If he was careful enough, he might be able to keep himself covered enough that Hux wouldn’t find out. He’d have to reassess once they reached the artifact. Belatedly, he hoped there would be enough room in the cave for both of them to turn around; he didn’t like the idea of having to crawl backwards. Maybe this was all a bad idea. Maybe he should have told Hux to go in alone and he would wait on the surface for him to return. But then again, if he had, Hux would have immediately suspected something—either that he was more injured than he was letting on, or that he was planning to leave him down there. He wasn’t friends with Hux, but he didn’t actually hate him. They worked surprisingly well together, and he felt like he wanted to nurture this fragile trust that had begun to grow between the two of them. 

Not enough to want to allow Hux to examine his injury, of course. That was asking for a bit too much trust.

As the cave began to open up a little and made an abrupt turn to the left, Hux held up his hand and stopped. “I need to see something,” he said, and clicked off the flashlight. 

The faint blue-white glow they had just barely seen from the mouth of the cave was now much stronger and brighter, illuminating their way forward. Kylo thought he felt something pulling him forward, urging him on. When he blinked, he thought he saw a ripple of red in the light, but he could have been mistaken. The only way to know for sure, though, would be to push on to the source. He gave Hux’s foot a nudge. Hux turned his head to look back at him, but said nothing and began to move again.

As the passage turned, it widened rapidly, opening into a chamber, a good five meters in diameter and three high. If not for the massive natural crystals growing out of the walls, it almost looked as if it had been deliberately carved out. Perhaps it had been, many, many millennia ago, and the crystals grew out of the moon and into the empty space, trying to slowly reclaim it. Hux rose to his feet and dusted himself off as best he could. Kylo followed suit, stepping around Hux to get a better look at the cave chamber. He breathed deeply, _feeing_ the difference between the chamber and the surface. He wasn’t sure how, with all the amvhenitite in the moon’s crust, but as soon as he had passed some invisible threshold, sensation washed over him and he knew he could feel and use the Force again. Perhaps it was the nature of the artifact, a connection to the Dark side of the Force so strong that it could overwhelm attempts to suppress it. Entering this chamber of the cave had almost felt like receiving a Force vision when he meditated. Force visions weren’t common, and it took a skilled Force-wielder to be able to bend the Force to _cause_ a vision to come to them at their command.

The first time he had had a Force vision had come as a surprise; he hadn’t been trying to see, but it came nonetheless. If meditation was supposed to make one an ‘empty vessel’ for the Force, Kylo would describe the sensation of receiving that vision as being suddenly filled with an ocean that wasn’t there, heavy but weightless. Force visions could be messages or portents of the future; sometimes what they showed was clear as crystal, but other times their interpretations were far more tenuous, like trying to capture smoke in a net. His first Force vision had come to him when he was seventeen and he didn’t think he would ever forget it.

In his Force vision, he had been standing in a small room or cave—looking much like this one, in fact—with walls made out of huge slabs of mirror-smooth kyber crystal. All around him, he saw reflections of himself in the crystals, watching, waiting for him to make a move. The air inside was still and full of electricity like waiting for a thunderstorm to break. He stepped forward to get a better look at himself—there had to be a reason why his vision was of mirrors. As he did, he noticed a few, subtle changes to his appearance, shifting slightly in the crystals. He still wore the same Jedi robes as he did every day of training, he still had his padawan’s braid hanging over his shoulder, but he thought he looked… older? Sharper-edged? He stepped closer to the wall of crystals and raised his hand to his chin. It still felt smooth under his fingers, but was that the beginning of a teenager’s patchy beard in his reflection? He shouldn’t be able to grow a beard, but… he _wanted_ it. It felt right. Looking more closely at his reflection, he _saw_ himself. He was still himself, still the same tall, lanky teenager, but… not a girl. A boy, a young man, maybe a little older than he was now, bearded and flat chested. Could the vision be showing him who he was supposed to be? Who he _could_ be? Was it possible?

Drawn to this new version of himself, the heavy air crackling around him, he stepped even closer to his reflection and lifted his hand to touch the kyber. The crystal fractured under his fingertips with the sound of a blaster bolt hitting its target and it felt like the storm broke the instant the kyber did, an unfelt wind roaring in his ears as the room darkened. He pulled his hand back, startled, and the crystal was stained with a crimson handprint where he had touched it. His own hand was clean and unmarked, but the kyber looked like it was bleeding out of the spidering cracks. The wind howled and whispered as he jerked his head around, trying to hear it better. It was speaking to him but he couldn’t hear clearly, a susurrus of voices under the roar of the storm, some familiar, some not. It echoed, each syllable spoken overlapping with the others like ripples disrupting each other on the water’s surface.

He had told Luke about most of the vision, omitting the darker parts of it. He didn’t feel like admitting that the kyber had bled under his touch would do anything but distress his uncle and distract from the most important part: could he become the man he had seen himself as?

“ _I’ve never heard of it happening_ ,” Luke had said, looking pensive, “ _but there are a lot of things I'm still learning, even now. Can I meditate on this and get back to you? This is, uh, a big change, and we ought to bring your parents in on it, too_.”

After some impatient weeks of meditation, discussion between himself, his uncle, and his parents, and many questions, he had found himself sitting in a small meeting room waiting for a decision to be made. Yes, he was serious; he had never felt so right about himself. His mother had explained that she had asked around discreetly, doing her own research in Chandrila’s extensive libraries, and with knowledgeable doctors, it certainly should be possible. She had answered his every question, as best she could, about how it might work, and he had eagerly soaked up the information. He had asked his parents what they would have named him had he been born a boy—or had _looked_ like a boy when he was born—and had been pleased with the answer they gave him: Ben. That certainly could have been what he had heard in his vision, though a little voice at the back of his mind said it didn’t quite fit. He silenced it. 

Luke had sat quietly, an unreadable expression on his face. When he finally spoke, Ben heard a hesitancy in his voice. He didn’t wish to be the bearer of bad news, but he had meditated on it in respect of how to proceed, with the consideration that Ben was still a padawan. None of the past Masters he had spoken to in his meditations had heard of it happening within the Jedi Order. Part of becoming a Jedi was learning patience and control, even in the face of great desire. Ben had frowned, his brows drawing in, and Luke had held up his hand to forestall what he knew was coming. He wasn’t saying it _couldn’t_ be done, but there were no precedents to draw from. As he went on, Luke explained that he would have no issue with Ben changing his name and pronouns, dressing in male robes, and binding his chest. However, any permanent, physical changes would have to wait until after he had completed his training and was no longer a padawan. 

A surge of anger had blossomed inside of Ben at hearing that last part, but he quickly quelled it, hiding the true depth and nature of his feelings. Knowing his uncle would pick up on it if he wasn’t careful, and he didn’t want to give him any reason to retract his offer. Of course he was happy to take what he could, but why should he have to _wait_ to begin hormone therapy? It wasn’t just ‘great desire,’ it was _necessary_ , why couldn’t Luke understand how important this was? Just because he’d lived with it this long didn’t mean he’d been comfortable with it before—he just hadn’t known _why_ things felt wrong and didn’t know they could be fixed. And none of the other padawans had to wait, their bodies had simply done what they had been born to do. It was only _his_ that had been confused about it. He had nodded, saying that he understood.

Snoke, however, would have no such rules. If it would help his new apprentice draw upon his power with more strength and vigor, then why should it not be given to him? The only inconvenience was how long it would take for the effects to become visible and how long it would then be before he could undergo the appropriate surgical corrections. He was still waiting impatiently for that.

Hux’s voice brought him abruptly back to the present.

“I didn’t catch that, could you repeat?” Kylo asked.

Hux sighed. “Are you certain you’re not concussed? I’m starting to wonder if your mask interfered with the scanner. You didn’t catch _any_ of what I said? I’ve only been talking to you for the past three minutes.”

“And you didn’t wonder when I didn’t respond?”

“No; you frequently refuse to add to conversations that _bore_ you, but you at least tend to _pay attention_.”

“I’m not concussed, I got… distracted. This place looks like something I saw once in a Force vision,” Kylo admitted. Hoping that, if he was honest, Hux wouldn’t ask him again to take off his mask.

“You’ve seen this place before?” Hux asked, startled enough to emote something other than anger or irritation.

“Yes and no,” Kylo replied. “Force visions are often quite open to interpretation.”

“Hm,” Hux nodded, taking in the information. “I don’t suppose your vision gave you an ‘interpretation’ of where the artifact could be secreted away in here? Scanners say it _is_ here, but it’s not buried in the ground or concealed by any kind of cloaking device—not that one could fit down here without being so obvious it defeats its entire purpose—and the mineral composition of the crystals in the walls are disrupting readings of anything that might be hidden behind them. I would prefer not to have to demolish this entire cave just to find one, small artifact.”

“No, but I will be able to locate it,” Kylo said, holding up his hand, closing his eyes, and reaching out with the Force.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ideally, I think the Jedi would have a pretty good handle on gender identity and transness, plus in space everyone can be as queer as they want, but for the purposes of this fic, I’m gonna make things a bit more complicated. Like, maybe traditionally, the Jedi Order was more rigid about gender and what padawans could or could not do and Luke had never knowingly known anyone trans, and now Luke is having to decide how his New Jedi Order is going to handle these kinds of things going forward. However, we don’t see this chapter through Luke’s eyes, only Kylo’s.


	5. Chapter 5 - Hux

Hux watched, trying to keep his face carefully neutral. Publically, he wasn’t impressed by the Force, by some arcane magic that only a select few born with the ability to feel it could control. Privately, it intrigued him. He wondered—not too loudly, of course, in case Ren was listening—how one became aware of such an ability in the first place, how one trained to control an invisible, intangible, omnipresent energy and bend it to one’s will. So he stood and watched Ren as he reached out, both with his hand and with the Force, and felt for the artifact.

Hux watched as Ren’s hand dropped to the saber at his belt, lifting and igniting it. He watched as one of the crystals shattered under the heat of the blade and the saber cut around it and through the cave wall with surgical precision. Retracting the blade, Ren reached out again and pulled a small, silvery cube—undoubtedly the one Hux had seen as a child; the feeling it gave off, the subtle pull was unmistakable—out of the hole left by the crystal he had carved out of the wall.

“Is this it?” Ren asked, floating the cube over towards Hux.

“It is indeed,” Hux said, removing a small box, specially prepared to hold the artifact, from the bag he was carrying.

“Good,” Ren said curtly.

He turned back towards the entrance to the cave chamber and the tunnel that would lead them back to the surface. As he did, Hux frowned as he saw that the blood on Ren’s tunic appeared to be still wet.

“Should we perhaps stop for a moment so I can examine your injury?” Hux asked.

“I’m fine!” Ren snapped back and entered the tunnel, effectively cutting off any further conversation.

Hux rolled his eyes and sighed. It was probably too much to hope that he could get Ren distracted enough at any point to be able to pull his tunic up and slap a bacta patch on his wound before he lost too much blood. He had no idea how badly it was bleeding, whether it was trying to close but failing due to exertion, what had caused it, whether whatever had caused it was still in the wound, anything other than it was a wound and it was bleeding. There wasn’t much he could do about it right now, anyway, so he dropped back down to his hands and knees to follow Ren up the tunnel back to the surface.

The walk to the mining outpost passed in strained silence, but at least it passed. They stopped at the main building’s front doors, frozen shut with age and disuse. Hux hoped the computers inside still worked. At least emergency beacons were built to last, but he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. If they could contact Snoke directly it would be far less embarrassing than being picked up by simply the closest Star Destroyer and having to come up with an explanation as to _why_ they were here at all.

“Thirsty?” Hux asked, holding up a bottle of water collected from one of the portable vaporators. 

Hux could almost feel Ren’s frown from behind his mask; he _had_ to be getting dehydrated, but pride or embarrassment prevented him from removing his mask in front of him to drink.

“Oh, very well. I don’t _care_ even if you’re the spitting image of your princess mother, but I promise I won’t look,” Hux said, handing over one of the bottles, keeping the other to drink himself. He turned his back as soon as the bottle was in Ren’s hand. “Tell me when I’m allowed to turn around again, alright?”

“Fine,” Ren said, his voice still distorted by his vocoder. 

There was a quiet hiss of pneumatics. Hux kept his eyes straight ahead and slowly sipped his water. He gave his word and he was going to keep it. He drank in silence.

Another hiss that must have been the mask being put back on, and then: “You can look again.”

Hux turned and took the empty water bottle from Ren, returning it to its portable vaporator. “Shall we go in?” he asked, gesturing towards the doors.

Wordlessly, Ren stepped forward, ignited his saber, and began to carve through the doors. They were thick and it was slow work, but it looked like Ren could be patient after all when it suited him.

The inside of the main building was dusty with age and dim, most of the lights refused to come on when tried, but it felt unnervingly familiar to Hux as they walked through, trying to find a working communication terminal. It couldn’t be said that the old Imperials had much creativity when it came to basic infrastructure like this, but he couldn’t help feeling like he had been returned to his first planetside posting after graduating from the Academy. The same basic layout, the same austerity, even the same barracks. If everything _was_ as similar as it felt, then he was certain that the next door they would pass on their left would lead to the refreshers. Idly, he wondered if the sonic showers would still have any power. The sheer amount of dust that had embedded itself into his uniform and gotten through onto his skin was… unpleasant. 

He shook his head almost imperceptibly, banishing the thought from his mind. It would be a waste of time and he didn’t need Ren seeing anything and asking _questions_. Oh, he’d completed his conversion, had all the necessary surgeries, changed his identification documents, had an extended release hormone replacement implant implanted, but there was one thing he hadn’t changed. He had given it all the necessary consideration, weighed the pros and the cons, and had opted not to receive a prosthetic penis. True, it would look just like the natural-born organ, would perform most of its functions admirably, but that was the catch— _most_ of the functions. He wasn’t willing to accept the loss of sensitivity, the loss of pleasure just to look ‘complete,’ whatever that actually meant.

And that had caused a certain amount of tension for Hux within the barracks and the communal refresher. Many of the men would change out of and back into their uniforms within the privacy of the curtained-off sonic shower stalls. It was frowned upon—the stalls were cramped and it took away valuable time that others could be using them for their intended purpose—but it happened, and Hux certainly wasn’t the only one to do so. He had tried his best to be inconspicuous, but with that many bored young military men all packed into the same barracks, something was bound to happen eventually; the Imperial Academy produced more than its fair share of bullies and practical jokers. His stature—tall but slim, almost willowy—had marked him as what they believed to be an easy target. 

However, to his credit, it had only happened once. He had been showering, uniform carefully folded and tucked away into a little box to keep the washed-off sweat and dirt from alighting on it, when one of the aforementioned bullies had decided it would be _hilarious_ to yank back the flimsy curtain and expose him to the room. _Ha ha, I wonder if the carpet matches the drapes? Look at him! Isn’t he a stick? He’s skinnier than a Kaminoan!_ He’d snarled and lunged forward to grab the curtain back to cover himself, but not quite in time. He’d seen the little glint of predatory glee in the other man’s eyes that meant he’d seen more than he should have. Hux swallowed, trying to hide the flash of fear that had moved through him like lightning, maintaining his glare, trying to intimidate and stare the man down.

It was, perversely, a sense of relief for Hux when the next three days were simply a barrage of whispered _he’s embarrassed because he’s got a tiny dick_ jokes and taunts. The jokes stopped rather abruptly on day four because, on the third night, he had gotten the instigator alone at the point of a knife and threatened to slowly and painfully murder him and then make it look like he’d gone AWOL. _I’m not doing this because I’m_ ashamed _of my body, I’m doing this because you_ irritate _me and killing you would no more trouble me than killing an insect. In fact, I might even enjoy it_. He could be quite convincing…

“General,” came Ren’s voice, sounding tired even through his mask’s vocoder, bringing Hux back to the present. “I’ve located a functional terminal. Bring the key over so I can contact Snoke.”

Hux didn’t much appreciate being ordered around by Ren, but he also wanted to get off of this moon, deliver the artifact to Snoke, and return to his regular duties. He fished the key out of his pocket and handed it over. He stood back and watched from a polite distance as Ren made the call, submitting to Snoke’s reproach for having crashed, but accepting his praise for having successfully found the artifact despite the initial setback. As soon as the connection closed and the little hologram of Snoke flickered out, Ren gave a pained grunt and eased himself down into a sitting position, back braced against the terminal.

Hux was at his side almost immediately, kneeling down and digging the medical scanner and medkit out of the bag. Ren turned his head to look at Hux; he was sure he was glaring at him from under that ridiculous mask.

“Are you still going to refuse treatment?” Hux asked, trying to keep his voice level, not to sound like he was gloating because he had been right all along.

“Why do you care?” Ren asked almost petulantly. “I thought you didn’t like me.”

“It’s not personal. I don’t publically like anyone, but I don’t hate you,” Hux shrugged, opening the medkit. “And besides, Snoke will flay me alive if we get back to the ship and it looks like I’ve deliberately allowed you to reach this condition or worse.” He pulled out a little bottle of brownish red tablets, each roughly the size of his smallest fingernail. “Here, take two of these. They’ll help with the blood loss until we can get you back to Medical and proper care. Now. Are you going to cooperate or not?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Warning** : Non-sexual, but non-consensual nudity. Hux is made an unwilling part of a “boys will be boys” (ugh, yes, I _know_ ) “haha, look, isn’t [person] super embarrassed to have been exposed to the whole room while showering?” type prank in the barracks showers early in his post-Academy military career.


	6. Chapter 6 - Both

Kylo was silent, running through his options in his head. Unfortunately, most of them involved either appearing in front of Snoke in his weakened and injured condition—not ideal—or allowing Hux to see him stripped of mask, cowl, tunic, and binder. He wouldn’t be able to hide. Even ordering Hux to look the other way as he attempted to treat himself wasn’t ideal.

“Oh, for stars’ sake, Ren!” Hux said in an explosive huff. “Do you _enjoy_ this? Does slowly bleeding out _do_ something for you? If you don’t take your damned shirt off and let me see how badly you’re injured, I’ll have to sedate you and _cut_ it off. Is that really what you want?”

“No,” Kylo replied quietly, defeatedly. He knew Hux was right. Didn’t mean he had to _like_ it, though.

“‘No’ what?” Hux asked, cocking his head slightly to the side.

“No, it’s not what I want,” Kylo said, rolling his eyes even though he knew Hux couldn’t see him do it. “Fine. You win this round. But anything you see here stays here. If even a hint of a breath of a whisper gets out, I will know where it came from and you will regret having been born.”

Hux looked unimpressed with the threat.

Kylo took a breath, braced himself, and removed his mask. He accepted the two little tablets from Hux and tossed them back dry. As he did, he thought he heard a burst of thought from Hux. He wasn’t sure if Hux was simply thinking very loudly, if the proximity to the artifact was managing to counteract the amvhenitite, or both.

\-----

_Oh. Oh no_ , Hux thought, inhaling sharply as Ren removed his mask. He was… would ‘beautiful’ be the right word? Striking? His hair was much longer than regulation ought to allow, his features were unconventional, slightly exaggerated, and he had something of an almost adolescent cast to his face despite being out of his teenage years, but he was undeniably attractive. _This_ was the face he was ashamed to show? Hux studied him. He didn’t even look _that_ much like his parents, certainly not so much as to turn heads. Perhaps his face and hair might be considered a touch too feminine by the older and stodgier men of the First Order, but no one underestimated his abilities. Or his temper.

Feeling Ren studying him back, feeling a faint tickle in the back of his mind—less invasive than what it usually felt like when Ren or Snoke probed into his thoughts—Hux felt suddenly compelled to offer an explanation for the feelings he was sure were all too visible on his face. 

“You… uh, you have a nice face,” Hux said, nearly stuttering. “I won’t argue with you about your mask, but. You shouldn’t be ashamed of how you look.”

Ren looked startled. Hux blinked and schooled his face once again.

“You’re… not lying,” Ren said, a statement rather than a question. He sounded surprised, like he had been long used to having his face insulted, and not just because of who his parents were.

“I am not,” Hux said plainly, shaking his head a little and looking down to poke through the medkit again. “Now, will you trust me to examine your injury and treat it as best I am able?”

Ren hesitated and Hux could see the misgiving on his face, still not quite trusting him about _something_ , he didn’t know what.

“I swear I’m not going to hurt you,” Hux said, trying to make himself sound softer than he usually felt. “We do work surprisingly well together and I could use… an ally. What do you say?”

\-----

Hux was being honest and surprisingly open about it, Kylo thought as he tried to reach into the general’s mind, to determine his true motives. And whether he had imagined that little flash of attraction. His connection with the Force was still muffled down here, but it did feel like, right now, Hux did want to patch him up so he wouldn’t have to worry about what Snoke would do to him when they arrived at the _Steadfast_ to deliver the artifact. And, to be entirely fair, Kylo did think he would appreciate having a second set of hands to help deal with his injury, and Hux was nice enough to look at while he did.

“Fine,” Kylo relented, hands moving to unbuckle his belt. “But what I said still stands. Anything you see here, stays here.”

“Yes, of course,” Hux replied drily. “What is it, an embarrassing tattoo? Hells, I’ve got one of those myself.”

Kylo blinked. He would never have placed Hux as having a tattoo, much less an embarrassing one. He found it hard to believe the man would agree to something so frivolous and _decorative_.

\-----

Hux wasn’t sure why he had admitted that, perhaps as some sort of show of trust? It did seem to have worked. Ren had removed his belt and cowl and he was carefully extracting himself from his tunic, trying not to further aggravate his injury. Hux bit his lip and tried to stifle the self-indulgent little noise he made as Ren lifted his tunic up and he got his first glimpse of what was under it. Ren wore a very tight light gray undershirt that hid approximately nothing of his physique, despite the amount of blood that had soaked into it. Oddly enough, the fabric of the undershirt seemed to have stitched itself back together, but Hux didn’t have time to wonder about that marvel of engineering just yet; Ren was _built_. Clearly, whatever training he did was working out quite well for him. Whatever Hux had expected going into this mission, ending it by spontaneously lusting over _Kylo Ren_ , of all people, was certainly not on his list.

Ren glanced over at him, looking mildly perplexed. Hux quieted his mind, and Ren, either satisfied or simply unwilling to investigate those feelings further, continued undressing. He gritted his teeth as the undershirt unstuck itself from his wound and he pulled it over his head. 

Hux averted his eyes. He knew what he had seen and he suddenly understood why Ren had been so loathe to allow him to help. He hadn’t known that about Ren, and Ren certainly wouldn’t have known it about him, wouldn’t have known that they had this in common.

“Do what you need to do,” Ren said tiredly, one arm squashed across his chest.

Hux nodded, unwrapped a cleansing pad, and began to dab at Ren’s wound. Ren hissed at the sting of the antiseptic, but stayed still, allowing him to do his job. The wound wasn’t too deep, but it was jagged and almost as long as his hand, from fingertips to the middle of his palm. Hux frowned, found a small pair of forceps, and removed a few pieces of debris—it looked like transparisteel from the viewport—from the gash.

“You were just going to hope this closed up on its own? With debris in it?” Hux couldn’t resist asking. Just because he empathized with Ren, just because he was pretty, just because they might be in the beginnings of an allyship, didn’t mean he couldn’t needle him when he made stupid decisions.

Ren grunted and refused to answer. Hux continued to work.

When he had gotten Ren’s wound cleaned up and removed whatever fragments of transparisteel he could find from it, Hux positioned the bacta patch over the gash and sealed it carefully. “There. That should hold until you can get to Medical and have a professional look at it. We can’t exactly get the blood out of your clothes down here, but you can get dressed again.” He turned away to give him some privacy.

\-----

Hux was taking this all very much in stride, Kylo thought as he wrestled his binder back on. There had been a flash of surprise, of embarrassment that he had seen something he wasn’t supposed to, but no disgust, no mockery, none of the negative feelings he had expected. He didn’t even get the feeling like Hux was storing this information away to be used later as he climbed up the ladder of power. It genuinely felt like he simply accepted it at face value? Kylo focused his mind, getting as strong a hold as he could on the Force down here, and began to probe into Hux’s thoughts.

 _You know, I can feel when you’re poking around my brain_ , Hux thought at him. _If you have a question, just ask me out loud. There’s no one else to hear us here_.

“You don’t have anything to say?” Kylo asked, needling Hux back. He had to make sure what he felt was real, that he truly didn’t care and wasn’t going to mention it to anyone. Had his threat struck Hux more deeply than he had realized, or did he genuinely not view this as noteworthy?

“What is there to say?” Hux replied, glancing up at Kylo for a moment before returning to reading some report or another on his datapad. “You are who you are.”

“You’ve always had an opinion on everything in every meeting we’ve ever been in together,” Kylo continued, holding his mask in his lap, suddenly unwilling to put it back on. He felt like he nether wanted nor needed to hide his face from Hux.

“And do I share those opinions willingly with you, or do you tweeze them out of my head for your own pleasure?” Hux sniped. “If you really want an opinion, I can get you the name of a good surgeon if you’d like. Very skilled, very discreet.”

“Why would you do that for me?” Kylo asked, puzzled about this new side of General Hux—and about why he would know a relevant surgeon. 

“I don’t know, I’m feeling oddly altruistic,” Hux shrugged. “What’s good for you is good for the First Order?”

There was something he wasn’t saying. Kylo wormed his way into Hux’s mind again.

“Ok, fine!” Hux said abruptly, shaking his head, as if doing so could dislodge Kylo. “I am too. Is that what you wanted?”

“You are?”

“Yes, why would I have any reason to lie about that?”

He had a point.

“So that means…” Kylo began, a smirk twisting his mouth.

“Don’t say it,” Hux said, scowling and focusing on his datapad.

“You _chose_ to call yourself ‘ _Armitage_ ’? Of all the names on all the planets, _that_ was what spoke to you?” Kylo snickered.

“If you have an unusual name in Junior Academy, no one questions why you’re a late bloomer, they’re too busy making fun of your name,” Hux said matter-of-factly.

“Ok, that’s fair,” Kylo said. He was silent for almost a full minute, then: “I have another question.”

“Ask,” Hux said flatly, not looking up from his datapad.

“What’s your embarrassing tattoo of? Where is it?”

Hux pursed his lips, cheeks coloring slightly.

“Oh, that bad, hm?” Kylo grinned and leaned over, almost onto Hux’s shoulder, quirking his eyebrows. “So, when do I get to see it?”

“Ren, are you _flirting_ with me?” Hux said, closing the report he was reading and turning his head to look at Kylo.

“Mm, you’d like that wouldn’t you? You’ve seen me and still find me attractive. You’ve been thinking about—”

“Please don’t pry into my thoughts,” Hux interrupted, not denying it.

“I didn’t have to pry to hear that,” Kylo continued. “You were thinking it very loudly. Now, when do I get to see your tattoo?”

“I expect to be wined and dined first; I have to maintain my reputation as a cold fish, you understand,” Hux replied with a little laugh.

“You won’t be a cold fish when I’m done with you,” Kylo said, putting as much innuendo into his voice and face as he could manage.

“We can’t be public about it, but I’ll holding you to that boast,” Hux smirked back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Magic space binders! The fabric is breathable, compresses nicely, prevents unwanted movement, doesn’t make the wearer super sweaty, allows for exertion, doesn’t get all stretched out, and repairs tears on its own. Because this is fanfic, so why not make it Fancy™? Also, Kylo’s thoughts on transition seem to be: Don’t like your pre-T body shape? Work out until you are roughly the size and shape of a refrigerator, then no one will question anything. Also, some guys report getting super horny when starting testosterone. Kylo is one of those guys.


End file.
